If you went to JMU during the early 1980s, chances
are you remember Isabel Mercedes Cumming ('84). She caused quite a
stir with her food-waste survey, which resulted in a "seconds"
policy in Gibbons Hall (known as D-Hall). She served in the Student
Government Association as a freshman and worked her way up through
the ranks, being elected president her senior year.

Although her D-Hall efforts might have gone
unappreciated by JMU at that moment in their relationship, she and
the university have done right by each other.

Cumming credits her JMU days for transforming her
from a quiet freshman into the voracious powerhouse she is today.
Wielding both an M.B.A. and a law degree, Cumming ferrets out
corruption, fraud and abuse as one of four prosecutors under unit
chief Elizabeth Ritter in the Economic Crimes Unit in the Baltimore
City State's Attorney's Office.

"There is a lot of crime in Baltimore," Cumming
says. "We had 300 homicides in one year. There are 200 associate
state's attorneys in Baltimore City trying 20,000 cases a
year."

And Cumming prosecutes her fair share of the
caseload -- with a vengeance. She has 20 open investigations now
pending and 15 to 20 cases that have been indicted and are ready
for trial.

Long before Enron and WorldCom CEOs and CFOs raised
the country's ire, flushed stock values and caused mass layoffs,
Cumming had already discovered how to pick a white-collar criminal
out of a lineup.

"It's the last person in the world you would
suspect," Cumming says. "It's the beloved, trusted employee who
never took a vacation. They never miss a day of work because
they're trying to keep the fraud going."

While average people are disgusted with such
corporate malfeasance, they can take some satisfaction in the
menace Isabel Cumming aims at it. She has no sympathy for these
raiders, whether milque-toast
malefactors who drain a tiny town's entire annual budget or dashing
executives who wreck international corporations.

"Most of these people come from privileged
backgrounds and feel they are entitled to things. It all comes down
to greed. People have no idea what greed breeds."

Cumming comes from a hardworking family and has no
tolerance for those who try to get ahead via dishonest means. She
grew up in Towson, Md., in a house 10
doors down from where she, her husband and two children live
today. Her parents still live in that house. Cumming's father is
from Canada, and her mother is from San Juan, Puerto Rico. They met
when her Dad was in the Navy and had a port call in Puerto Rico.
They have been married 44 years.

"My mother was from a more privileged background,
but my father was from a working-class family. My siblings and I
all went to public schools and have all worked very hard. I paid
for graduate school and for law school and had $10,000 in student
loans from JMU."

Cumming majored in accounting at JMU, then went to work at Peat Marwick as an auditor
during the savings and loan crisis. Two years later, she joined
American National Bank as director of internal auditing. She got
her M.B.A. from the University of Baltimore in 1989 and became a
certified fraud examiner. She did not, however, pass the CPA exam.
"I passed auditing and law, so this must be what I was meant to
do," she says.

After completing her master's, Cumming went on to
get a law degree. She then spent a year as a law clerk at the U.S.
Attorney's Office, then moved on to the state special prosecutor's
office, where she worked on several bank fraud cases. "A well-known
one around here involved former city comptroller Jacqueline
McLean," Cumming says. "She made up a fictitious employee and used
the money to buy herself luxury items like things from Victoria's
Secret."

This is just the sort of fraud that Cumming loves
to go after. She revels in amassing a case against such a criminal.
"If I have a copy of a check deposited into your account, you are
going to lose," Cumming says. "It is hard to go up against
documents, so a lot of cases plead out." This prosecutor has more
than one cancelled check for any given case, however. If a case
goes to court, she arrives with notebooks full of
documentation.

Although high-powered fraud cases are now in the
news, Cumming's unit chief says white-collar crime has always been
with us. "I've been prosecuting politicians, doctors and lawyers
for 20 years," Ritter says. "We've had all of the major
corporations in town as clients. If the media is more focused on
white-collar crime, it's because of WorldCom and other high profile
cases. Fraud is definitely a growth industry."

Identity theft is another area that yields big
returns for criminals and big headaches for victims. "Credit card
offers are often sent to a whole neighborhood at one time," Cumming
says. "Criminals pull them out of the trash, keep the name, but
change the address to a Post Office box and run the cards up to the
limit. If they get 50 cards at $5,000, it's a pretty easy way to
make a quarter of a million dollars and disappear."

The smallest case Cumming has prosecuted involved
$10,000; the largest case was more than $1 million.

There is no such thing as a typical day for
Cumming. She might meet with a high-powered CEO at 9 a.m. and a
convicted criminal at 11. These days, they could be the same
person. Her day starts around 7:30 a.m., but she usually manages to
be home by 4:30 p.m. to spend time with her children.

Cumming and her husband own a "teeny, tiny" beach
house in Ocean City with another couple. That is where she likes to
get away when there is time. "I also like to go to antique shops
and walk around and I like reading true crime stuff. I love losing
myself in the movies."

Cumming doesn't find much time for herself, and,
though she seldom exercises, she calls herself "ridiculously
skinny." She often forgets to eat because she is so busy. The
heavy-hitting prosecutor weighs in at 102 pounds.

Cumming was no less busy at JMU. As president of
the SGA, she was in charge of a $250,000 budget. "Prior to going to
JMU, I was an incredibly shy, quiet person," she says. "My first
date in high school was

to the senior prom, and
at JMU, I was on the Homecoming court. I remember Dr. [Ronald E.]
Carrier called me four days before graduation and asked me to be
the commencement speaker. I spoke in front of 23,000 people. I
would not be where I am today if it wasn't for JMU. Those were
life-changing years."